Measuring complexity of the objects of the verb give across English varieties: a study of constituent length and dependency distance

Drawing data from the International Corpus of English, this study investigates the complexity of direct objects (DOs) and indirect objects (IOs) of the verb give in Hong Kong English (HKE), Indian English (IndE) and British English (BrE) based on two metrics: length and dependency distance (DD). The findings are as follows: (1) DOs in HKE and IndE are shorter or structurally simpler than those in BrE, potentially due to second language acquisition simplification strategies, object pronominality and language contact effects. (2) The lack of a significant difference in IO length across the three English varieties may be attributed to the pronominality of IOs. However, IndE exhibits a significantly greater DD of IOs compared to HKE and BrE, likely due to differences in complementation pattern preferences. (3) The DD of DOs and IOs in the three English varieties remains within a certain range, which may reflect the “principle of least effort” in human language use. Moreover, DOs are longer and exhibit a greater DD than IOs, a difference that may be attributed to the pronominality of objects and the proportion of adjacent dependencies. This study introduces DD as a feasible metric for studying world Englishes.